Healthcare Leaders Support Bipartisan Congressional Push for Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Improvements

Letter Signed by 26 Lawmakers Calls for Greater Transparency, Increased Participation by Healthcare Stakeholders 

WASHINGTON – Healthcare industry leaders are strongly supportive of a call by 26 Democratic and Republican lawmakers to review how the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) carries out its work in testing innovative healthcare delivery and payment models.

The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC), comprised of leading companies from every sector of healthcare, applauded a bipartisan letter led by Representatives Terri Sewell (D-AL) and Adrian Smith (R-NE) that calls for greater transparency in CMMI decisionmaking, a stronger effort to engage healthcare stakeholders, and modeling that seeks to improve beneficiary health as well as achieving cost savings.  The letter was addressed to CMMI Director Elizabeth Fowler, recently named by President Biden to the position.

The letter, in part, says, “As we look toward the future of CMMI, we believe it will be stronger with greater transparency and increased participation from stakeholders.  We believe in greater use of real-time data to immediately understand the impact of models on healthcare providers and patients so that decisions can be made quickly about the value of a demonstration.  And we insist CMMI’s actions reflect its intended mission, to carry out demonstration of projects of limited scope and duration to test new payment and delivery concepts.”  The lawmakers note that “adequate consultation and transparency in the processes used to develop these experiments are rarely observed and CMMI demonstrations are less effective than they could be for the lack of this external expertise.”

HLC president Mary R. Grealy welcomed congressional interest in CMMI’s mission.  She said, “We believe strongly in the potential of CMMI to advance health system improvements that will strengthen health outcomes, address health disparities, and achieve greater cost-efficiencies.  Now that we have a decade of CMMI actions and results to evaluate, it’s an opportune time to identify changes to ensure the Center’s promise as an agent for positive change can be fully realized.  With congressional engagement and President Biden’s excellent choice of Elizabeth Fowler to head CMMI, I’m confident these essential improvements will occur.”

For Immediate Release
June 7, 2021
Contact: Kelly Fernandez  202-449-3452